You have seen their house and it is spectacular but i couldn’t figure out why they just didn’t seem at home. I tried a lot of small things like putting different bedding in there and chew toys and a bunch of different things but nothing seemed to work. Why wouldn’t these lovelies settle in this fantastic palace!?

So i decided to put a radio in there one day and they seemed to like it but it still wasn’t what they were looking for. so what was left? Light! I had a small solar powered light that i would test my theory with before i got too carried away with this new project. Well to our amazement the very first night they settled right in, slept like babies and no whining. Who knew they were afraid of the dark!

Gotta Step Up the Lighting

So we hired PDR Electrical Contracting to come out and wire up some lights for my babies. I am pretty sure they though I was nuts for wanting to wire an entire dog house, as a matter of fact they joked about it a bit (in a very good way) but they sketched out the entire plan right in front of me. It was really cool to see them work actually, they did the blueprint up with my input, revised it, then put it into action right away!

We went out and bought some light fixtures and dimmers and timers and had the whole project done in just over a day. I have to tell you the dogs just love it. You can tell they feel like it is really their home now, just like their humans in the bigger house.

Now of course they still want in the big humans house but we try our best to keep them out. My will power is not the greatest when it comes to these wonderful animals of course but honestly I love them more than most people out there anyway.

MIXED EMOTIONS TODAY

So today on our way to my grand daughters Karate Lesson we were dropping of on of our pups at their new owners house. It is always a difficult day when you have to separate with one of these magnificent animals but we know that she is going to a wonderful new home. Sounds like the dog will be around a lot of kids at the new owners home and at the karate dojo. These dogs are so wonderful with children that I have no doubt she will thrive with the new family.

MORE THAN JUST DOGS

That brings me to my next topic of conversation (rant if you will!), not so much about Kooikers specifically but about how wonderful these animals can be at all times. Service Dogs. Dogs are so much more that just a four legged furry animals. A “service dog” is any guide dog, hearing dog, or other dog trained to perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a physical or mental disability.

They come in so many different forms.

Service dogs are often considered in one of five categories:

Hearing Dogs

(“Signal Dogs”) Alert deaf or hearing-impaired people to important sounds

Psychiatric Service Dogs

Help with mental health disabilities such as PTSD, Major Depression, Panic/Anxiety, agoraphobia, schizophrenia, and the like

Mobility Dogs

Perform tasks and provide support and balance for ambulation for those with limited mobility

Medical Alert Dogs

Trained to be sensitive to medical events or conditions, including diabetes, seizures, and cardiac conditions

All of the titles, distinguishing categories and types of Service Dogs have no bearing under federal law — a Service Dog is a Service Dog is a Service Dog. However, the various types of Service Dogs make breaking down the dogs’ functions, jobs and tasks a little easier and can make a trainer’s life less stressful. For example, a Service Dog trainer may have a ton of experience training Diabetic Alert Dogs, but may not be qualified to train and place Visual Assistance or Guide Dogs.

Service dogs perform so many different things for individuals in need. Some things i have seen them do are getting help, pulling on command, turning lights on or off barking to alert of danger, doorbell, or telephone, blocking (creating space around an individual)
opening doors, drawers, and refrigerators retrieving specific objects (videotapes, keys, remotes, etc.) or dropped articles, carrying lots of different objects for their owner and so so much more.

Please please please if you see a trainer training the dog do not interfere! these dogs are usually just pups (a bit older of course) but need to have full concentration while training. Please explain to your children what is going on and explain all the wonderful things dogs do for us humans.

Have you ever had one of those weeks? You no when you are trying to do 100 things at once and just nothing goes right? We are trying to get this website going and it seemed to be doing just fine then BAM! Our air conditioning goes down. Ok it happens right? Then we had already had a few home renovations planned so that was also happening. We had our roof repaired, some windows replaced and some painting down. Man o man that is a lot for this old girl to handle all at once.

Every cloud has that silver lining….

So during our renovations our painter (who was a bit chatty to say the least) was telling us about this dogs. He obviously knew we were breeders at one point (because of the equipment outside still) so he felt like he really needed to tell us all about this boys at home. No problem for us at all because we can talk about our babies all day, just like most of you reading this post i bet!. he didn’t have Kooikers but he really wanted to know everything about ours and seemed like he loved all animals so it really was karma that brought us together i think. Anyway he happened to notice our Jessie’s dog house out back that is wooden and needed a face lift really bad. He took a really long look at it, I suggested getting a new one but he was having none of that, he suggested that he would restore and paint it up to make it look better than ever. and he was right. Take a look!

Couldn’t be happier!

We just couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. Seriously this dog house is around 8 or 9 years old and it looks brand new. I told him i would mention him and his company on my website so here it is…. Creative Trends Painting is the best interior painters i know. They also apparently are awesome at restoring dog houses and probably everything else. Thanks again to them.

So lets see yours

Send us all your pics of your dogs homes and we will post some up in the gallery section.